If I Fix You

Jill is a sixteen-year-old who knows how to fix cars. She can change oil and tires, do a break job and body work, and she loves resurrecting old classic cars, a passion she shares with her mechanic father.But when her life collapses, she has no idea how to fix it. She witnesses something that costs her both her mother and Sean, the boy she loves. Her best friend, Claire, tries to smooth things over between them by enlisting them to get up early every morning during summer vacation and run with her. Jill only agrees to support her diabetic friend’s fitness efforts; she can’t even bear to look at Sean.On hot, lonely summer nights, Jill goes out on her roof to watch the stars. One night she sees a brutal scene happening in the house next door. In an effort to stop it, she tries to throw a can of pop against the house—and instead breaks a window. That’s when she meets Daniel, her new 21-year-old neighbor who has a much worse problem with his mother than Jill has with hers. Daniel is so broken Jill wishes she could fix him, too.Jill is very inexperienced in dating, yet she has incredible maturity in dealing with Sean and Daniel. She has a strong understanding of what’s right and wrong. Too bad her mother doesn’t have the same ethical standards.Jill’s mother abandoned the family, and then gets in touch with them again many months later, wanting to take Jill from her father. Then her mother tells her something that must be a lie—but could it be true?The book takes many twists and turns and things keep getting worse for Jill and for Daniel. Surprisingly, Jill seems to escape major consequences from some of the messes she gets into: backing into Daniel’s mother’s car; indirectly causing a fistfight between Sean and Daniel; ruining the engine of a car she and her dad were fixing up (a present for her); it just seems that she gets off easy without having to deal with insurance companies or giving explanations to her father.Nevertheless, the writing is well-done; Jill, Sean, Daniel, and Dad are extremely likeable, though they all have serious issues that keep them from being too nice; the two main mothers are decidedly unlikable, though Daniel’s mother has reasons for being the way she is. If I Fix You is definitely worth reading and hard to put down.

If I fix you was a very enjoyable read that I quickly devoured in a couple of hours it had twists and turns, ups and downs with an interesting and likeable (though not completely original) main character with many equally enjoyable characters interacting with her throughout the book. The one character I feel wasn't deeply explored enough was Daniel, from the glimpse into his past we know that he is an incredibly complicated person with an equally complicated past though his past is explored and explained I feel that it wasn't with the depth this intriguing character deserved as well as the fact that the title proves false in this character's case as he isn't fixed in any way his problems and his future aren't properly addressed as he simply drives of promising to call in a few years time. Another character I had issues with was Sean his character was well developed as the author reviled the past events and constantly shone him in negative light, he was the secondary bad guy which had me confused and unsatisfied when suddenly we are expected to completely shift our view of him to that of positivity as he wins the character over with a story that holds no substance to the reader as his good side was never reviled before then apart from this I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone looking for a quick interesting read but these minor character issues in my mind gave this book 4 stars

This debut novel by Abigail Johnson had me hooked from beginning to end. A fan of YA, I get so tired of the typical angsty love triangles so often found in the genre. While it definitely has its share of romance (think mysteriously broken boy next door and hunky, imperfect, almost-boyfriend she grew up with), Jill's story is so much more. It's also a wonderful tale of a sweet father/daughter relationship - a mutually selfless bond so much bigger than circumstance. Walk with Jill through the most challenging trial of her life and discover with her how hard it is to fix those around you when you're broken yourself. Author Abigail Johnson's humor, suspense, style, and flow will have you completely wrapped up in her characters' world and might have even caused this muscle car novice to Google images of the Triumph Spitfire.

Its a story that spoke to me in more ways than one, the characters are memorable in their own way, the main character is a cool grease monkey with cute attitude, and the relationships she has with everyone makes for a unique perspective on who she is. Without spoiling too much, its a nice read with a memorable plot that made me unlock feelings I kept holding in for a while haha. I started to call all those close to me, and break down to them how much they meant to me, like how much Jill means to her dad. Anyways, great read, great characters and great lessons on love, life and most of all, forgiveness.

Glaringly obvious there are great parents and those who do real damage. Nice YA novel where the protagonists are decent kids, who aren’t bullied at school. I enjoyed the story and I’ve always liked this authors writing. I intend to read other books she wrote, but feel the need to read stories about an older age group.

I loved this book. The characters were so rich and well rounded. The father daughter relationship was warm and believable. I loved that Jill’s friends were there for her, and how much she didn’t take them for granted. In turn, she was there for Daniel—even when things got very complicated. Jill wasn’t perfect, but she did her best in very trying circumstances. And she did her best for the people she loved. If I Fix You was a lovely story. I highly recommend it.

If I Fix You is a slow moving, beautiful exploration of grief, identity and relationship. Throughout the full arc of the novel, the pace and tone is perfectly matched to the heroine's (our narrator's) emotional space. At the start of the novel, Jill's feeling of stuck-ness is tangible. Her parents have split up - her mother walking out on them after Jill walked in on her in a... compromising position. Since then, Jill and her father have existed, neither sure how to adjust to suddenly being a family of two instead of three, and Jill is tangled in secrets, in sadness, in hopelessness. And yet despite the slow, sluggish heaviness weighing her down, Jill has a core of resilience. She has passions, interests, people that she loves - she adores her father, loves working as his assistant at his auto shop, loves her well-meaning best friend Claire, and desperately wants things to be normal with former best friend Sean. But she's haunted by what she saw that night, and the girl who loves to fix things doesn't know where to start fixing this.And then a new neighbour moves in next door, with his own secrets and problems, and Jill realises that while she doesn't know how to sort out her own life, she might just be able to help Daniel with his.Highly recommend, especially if you enjoy contemporaries.